«As much as the respect for Queen Sofía may be, Mrs. Letizia should establish
your own personal style to do things, without having to follow the model established for four decades by the current queen. This is the recommendation of a demoscopic study that
Jaime Alfonsin, head of the King’s house, launched in 2013 to find out what expectations the public had regarding the Queen. The journalist reveals it in his book ‘Felipe, a king in adversity’ (Ed. Planeta)
Jose Antonio Zarzalejos, aware of much of what has happened in the Spanish royal family for at least four decades.
It is worth tracing it to shed some more light on this issue of
‘the feminist Queen’ that has put on the table French magazine Point de Vue. With
Letizia on the cover, this monarchical weekly titled “On the assault of the last taboos” and points to a series of ‘royals’ who, despite belonging to one of the most traditional institutions of our democracies, defend the fight against inequality and violence:
Sophie de Wessex,
Victoria from Sweden,
Grand Duchess Maria Theresa of Luxembourg and, from the outside,
Meghan Markle.
–«In a post-Me Too world, some Royal Highnesses have decided to march into combat with one goal:
release the word of women», The article begins. “What if feminism was also written in court …?” This angle is not without its reason: it is true that some crowned women and aristocrats close to European thrones
are entering new terrain with clearer and more direct discourses: Sophie De Wessex has spoken of menopause and menstruation, Maria Theresa of Luxembourg of rape as a weapon of war and
Letizia, from
the wage gap, gender violence or the lack of female references and leadership.
It is not clear, however, that their agendas can be ascribed to feminism. If anything, they are collecting demands that,
thanks to feminism, go from the political struggle for certain rights to demands that are assumed as
a human rights issue. Not only because the parliamentary monarchy is committed not to show its partisan option, but because
its institutional role of representation of all citizenship recommends it. For that very reason,
Angela Merkel She admitted that she was a feminist only a few weeks ago, when her last term as chancellor is over.
–
Queen Letizia in one of her video interventions during the pandemic. /
–
—
And yet, something in the way these women behave traces
a line of no return compared to its predecessors. Perhaps it is not a change in their institutional role or a revolution in their agenda, but something much more prosaic and inevitable: they are all women of their time. In an interview with the ‘Diario de Navarra’,
Jose Antonio Zarzalejos hits the nail on the head of this feeling of feminism that all these ‘royals’ convey, through the figure of Letizia. When asked if the Queen would agree to play
the professional and long-suffering role of the queen emerita Sofía, the veteran analyst answers:
«Being a woman of her time, she will not allow herself to be treated like a woman of the 19th century, but rather
will demand your rights, as women should do in the 21st century. They are not subordinate to anyone, absolutely anyone. Not from a king. Absolutely not. Today’s women play a role, and it is neither better nor worse than that of a man,
but they are not subordinate. I believe that
Queen Letizia he is perfectly aware of it and so practices it.
– .
